


The Phoenix

by TempestRising



Category: Boy Meets World
Genre: 5+1 Things, But if you rewatch this thing it's definitely some kind of abuse, Child Abandonment, Cory is a good bro, Gen, I know there's no actual physical abuse in the show, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Neglect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:35:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22914862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TempestRising/pseuds/TempestRising
Summary: Amy never even told Alan about it, because she wasn't sure what to say. There was nothing to say. An aborted sleepover. A kid walking himself home at night. A phone number that didn't work. It wasn't like Shawn was covered in bruises.Not this time.Or: Five times someone noticed something wrong with Shawn Hunter and one time Cory noticed everything.
Relationships: Cory Matthews & Shawn Hunter, Jack Hunter & Shawn Hunter, Shawn Hunter & Jonathan Turner
Comments: 19
Kudos: 208





	The Phoenix

i.

They say mothers notice these things first. Amy's not sure if that's true, but her first hint that something was wrong happened way back when Cory and Shawn were about nine years old.

With her middle child, she prided herself on not hovering. Morgan was a toddler and Eric an overactive pre-teen, so when Shawn showed up one day in first grade Amy had welcomed him, if only as a means of occupying Cory's time.

She just wasn't quite prepared for how much time.

While Eric, then and now, had a new best friend every few months, Shawn had become a staple. Amy hadn't considered Shawn's red flags before because she thought he'd be just another kid who passed through the home.

Three years in, though, Shawn was here to say. And she had time to consider him.

He didn't think much of school, though to be fair Amy didn't know many boys his age who did. He tended to bring out a sillier prankster side of Cory. He was opinionated and sometimes sly but, as Alan pointed out when Amy brought up her concerns, he was also loyal as a dog. he took Cory's side no matter what. With Eric occasionally picking on his little brother and Morgan already showing a bossy streak it was nice to see someone try to even the numbers.

She was thinking about those numbers when Cory tripped down the stairs, Shawn at his heels. "Mom! Can Shawn sleep over tonight?"

She'd always wanted a houseful of kids. She just hadn't known this was how she'd get it. "Shawn, you know you're always welcome, but we're leaving tomorrow, Cory. We're visiting your aunt at the Jersey Shore, remember?"

"That's why Shawn has to stay! I told him about the elephant and he doesn't believe me!"

Ever since their first visit to Margate two summers ago the kids had become obsessed with Lucy the Elephant, a tourist trap of a house built into the shape of, well, an elephant.

Amy pinched the bridge of her nose. There was room in the car, if they squeezed. She had packed snacks for the trip and had even packed an extra that could, theoretically, be Shawn's. But. Well. Sometimes she just wanted to see her family. She knew that in a few short years Eric would be skipping these day trips in favor of courting some girl, and Cory wouldn't be far behind. These weekends were numbered.

Amy leaned over the counter. "I hate to break it to you, boys, but I think taking someone else's kid over state lines is actually illegal."

...She didn't know if it was illegal, but it sounded plausible enough.

Cory wilted, then perked up. "But if you have permission it's alright, right? Shawn, just call your mom and get her to say it's okay!"

With the problem solved, Cory raced back upstairs, leaving Shawn staring at Amy. "I didn't know you were going on a trip." Shawn bit his lip. He was a sensitive kid. Not that he had thin skin, but that he picked up on things, sometimes. Strangely attuned to adult emotions. "I should probably go home."

All at once Amy felt wrong, ungenerous. "No, Cory's right. If you get your mom on the phone I'll tell her I'm not kidnapping you forever."

"No! I mean, you don't have to do that. I'll, um, can you tell Cory I'll see him at school?" Shawn was backing towards the door.

"Don't be silly." Amy had already mentally repacked the car. "Call your mom and tell her you're spending the night." She picked up the phone, glancing at the list of numbers they kept on a whiteboard over it. Sometimes Cory got like this, strange and shy at the prospect of talking into a phone.

Shawn stood with one hand on the back door, hair falling in front of his face. It was too long, but Amy knew how it could be to cut hair like that, like Eric's, shining waves of hair. Eric had been blond as a baby, and still ripened to blond in the summer. Shawn was going to be handsome in a few years. Mothers could tell.

The phone at the Hunter house rang and rang. When someone finally picked up, they answered in Spanish.

Amy hung up. Redialed the number. Kept an eye on Shawn. How he seemed to collapse in on himself. She did some quick calculations. How many times had Shawn slept over in the past week? Eaten here? When was the last time she'd met Shawn's mother? When was the last time she'd spoken to one of his parents? She was constantly on the phone with other parents. "Is Eric there?" "Can you pick up the kids from practice?" "Have you seen Cory?" But the Hunters never seemed to be part of the party line round-up.

When was the last time they drove Shawn home?

Again, when someone picked up, a male voice, exasperated. "Hola?"

Amy hung up. "Did you parents get a new number, Shawn?"

"Um, yeah, I guess, but I don't remember it right now?" Shawn laughed and the gesture was so adult-laughing past a difficult conversation-that it startled Amy, even as she tried to think about how much she truly knew about this friend of Cory's. "It's okay, Mrs. Matthews, I think I have to be home, anyway."

"Let me drive you," Amy offered. Wondered why they didn't offer every night. Why the Hunters never called to ask about their kid. Wondered how many people had their eyes on this boy.

"It's okay, I like the walk." Shawn looked up. His eyes were...pleading. But for the life of her Amy wasn't sure what for. She wasn't even sure what was happening here.

"Have a good night, Mrs. Matthews."

That was it. He walked out the door. Amy never even told Alan about it, because she wasn't sure what to say. There was nothing to say. An aborted sleepover. A kid walking himself home at night.

A phone number that didn't work.

It wasn't like Shawn was covered in bruises.

Not that time.

ii.

Alan didn't usually drink, but after an overnight restocking shift that turned into a sixteen hour marathon ending at five on a Saturday night, he deserved the six pack he picked up on the way home.

Amy had taken Eric and Morgan shopping for new clothes but Cory had recently been deemed old enough to be left at the house alone. He was out in the garden, sometimes shooting hoops with Shawn but mostly tackling each other and trying to spin the ball on their fingers. Alan said hello on his way in the door.

"Play with us, Dad!" Cory passed him the ball but Alan deflected with an elbow. Usually he made time for things like hoops after dark, but tonight...tonight...

"I think I'm just going to go watch the game and heat up that pizza from last night."

Cory looked sheepish. "I think we ate all the pizza. Sorry." Alan must have looked some kind of way because Cory hurried to say, "But I only had one piece! Shawn had three!"

Shawn jabbed an elbow in Cory's ribs. "Nuh-uh! Eric stole a slice, remember?"

"You still ate two! Which is more than me!" Cory punched Shawn in the arm. Not lightly. The boys were getting rougher with each other but Eric had gone through the same thing. Unless there was blood Alan didn't intervene. "Come on, Dad. Two on one!"

"Let your Dad go sit down, Cory." Shawn reasoned. If Alan had been paying attention (and later he would scour this memory and pay a heck of a lot more attention) he could have noticed Shawn's eyes darting to the six pack. "You wanna win against me? I'm not just going to let you cheat."

Shawn stole the ball and sunk a perfect basket, as if that settled the argument. Alan let himself in the door before his headache could explode out on the sidewalk. A couple of beers, maybe a college football game. An hour or more until the others got home. He just needed some time, just a few minutes to himself to decompress.

And he got it. For once, a quiet house, a couple of English muffins that he piled high with deli meat (yes, discounted from the store, sue him, discount groceries was the only thing that had gotten them through the broke years right after the kids came). Ohio State vs LSU going toe-to-toe on the small screen. Was this what it was like to be childless? Alan no longer remembered.

He glanced at the door, knowing that Amy was liable to walk in the minute he opened his first beer. But the door didn't open, and one beer turned to four and the game was a field of green and he put his feet up on the coffee table and his bones ached but that ache was getting duller now and he finally felt clearheaded.

Then something broke.

He could hear the snap and shatter and turned his head in the direction of the back garden. It was well after dark. Usually he didn't care-they had a light over the hoop, and Feeny was always keeping an eye on the kids-but strange how any loud noise now made him immediately think of that commercial they played late at night: _"Do you know where your children are?"_

"Cory?" he yelled. "Shawn? If there's blood, don't get it on the carpet."

(that was dad-speak for "sound off an tell me if anyone's hurt.")

There was a short conference by the back door and Alan popped the top off the next beer. So no injuries, but probably something was broken and the boys were trying to get their stories straight. Well. Who said the football game had to be the night's only entertainment?

He muted the game just as Cory peered into the living room. "Um, so, Dad, you might have heard a little...ruckus? Not even a ruckus, really, more of a regular ruck. Or a...murmur."

Shawn smacked the back of Cory's head. Again, not very gently. These boys were more a danger to each other than anyone else. "I told you to let me handle it." Shawn took a deep breath like he was the player on the television squaring off against a three hundred pound lineman. He raised his eyes to Alan's and froze.

Alan took another sip, motioning Shawn ahead with the bottle. "I'd like to hear some kind of explanation, Shawn. Who threw the basketball in the window."

"It was the door, actually," Cory piped up. He seemed to instantly know that was the wrong thing to say. "I mean...me, Dad. It was me."

"No, sir," Shawn butt in, elbowing Cory out of the room (and also putting most of his body in front of Cory, and Alan would think of that years later, and he'd remember saying to Amy "loyal as a dog" way back when Cory and Shawn were six. That boy would lay down in traffic for his son, and Alan was often exasperated with Shawn but he always remembered that devotion.) "Mr. Matthews, it was me. I did it. I'm..." again with that little eye flick to the six pack, now mostly gone. "I'm sorry."

Alan knew he should probably get up and inspect the damage but first he leaned forward. "You boys need to learn to be careful. I told you a thousand times you can only play ball if you mind the doors and windows."

"Yeah, but Dad-"

Shawn put his arm in front of Cory again. And...was that arm shaking? Was Shawn shaking like a leaf in a storm? "Yeah, 'course Mr. Matthews. Um, I'll pay you back and all but it might take a while. Or, well, I guess I can work at the store or something?"

"Just how broken is this door?" Alan got up to try to peer around the boys. He put a hand on Shawn's shoulder. A spiderwebbing crack splintered out from the handle. He'd have to replace the whole pane.

"Dad!?"

Alan looked at Cory, who was looking at Shawn, who was...shaking didn't really describe it. Trembling? Eyes wide and unfocused. Chin wobbling like he was desperately trying not to cry. Alan went over the last minute or so in his head. He'd raised his voice, sure, but Shawn was a tough kid, often in trouble. He had to be used to being shouted at. Why would this be any different?

He put a hand on Shawn's other shoulder. The hand holding the Heineken by the neck. And Shawn cringed away. He put the beer down on the end table.

"Shawn?" Cory said in an entirely different voice than he'd been using lately. Eleven-year-olds could communicate entirely in punches and fart jokes, but there was also an empathetic small human in there, waiting to get out. This tone was gentle in a way Alan hadn't heard before. "Hey, Shawn, it's alright. The door was my fault anyway."

Cory glanced up at Alan. "It really was. I sort of threw the ball at his head, and he ducked and it hit the door. But then he said to tell you that he broke the glass. He said that he's sort of used to being in trouble anyway."

"You shouldn't let your friends lie for you, Cory," Alan said, but in a distracted way. That was a conversation for another time, taking your own punishments. Right now Shawn's breathing had gone worryingly shallow. "Hey, Shawn, kiddo, why don't you come sit down?"

When Alan grabbed Shawn's arm to steer him over to the couch the kid's whole body went rigid, and what did that mean? What did any of this mean? He'd hollered at Cory and Eric until he were blue in the face. He sometimes lamented to Amy that the kids just weren't scared of him, and she'd retort "you want them to be scared of you?" and he'd snap back, "well, I'd like a little damn respect around here."

If this is what respect looked like, he could certainly do without.

"I'm sorry about the door," Shawn gasped.

"Shawny," Cory murmured, pressing himself against Shawn on the couch, "I already told Dad that I broke the door."

"No, it was me! I'm trouble anyway!"

And it was those words that would chase themselves around Alan's mind for the next year. For the next several years. The shade of difference between being _in_ trouble and being trouble. How many times had this kid been told that he was a handful? That he was a bad influence? That he was from the wrong side of the tracks? How many times had people told Shawn-had they implied to Shawn-that he was just trouble?

"You're not in trouble," Alan said. "I'll take care of the door. It's fine." Or at least it paled in comparison to what was happening here.

Shawn didn't react to his words, just doubled over on the couch, hugging his knees.

It was Cory who turned to him and said, fiercely, "You can't scare him like that, Dad! He only gets like this when he gets scared!" An eleven-year-old ball of righteous anger.

Alan looked between Cory and Shawn, bemused. "How often does this happen?" When Cory just crawled across the couch to hold Shawn on his lap, Alan repeated his question (making sure not to raise his voice. He could learn from his mistakes.) "Cory? Has this happened before?"

"He gets scared sometimes," Cory snapped. He patted Shawn's hair. "It's okay. I take care of it."

By the time Amy got back home the boys were asleep on the couch and Alan was in a chair. The beer was gone. The game was over. He drank water while _My Cousin Vinny_ played on tv with too many commercials.

Amy took off her scarf. "Looks like you guys had an eventful evening," she teased. Eric and Morgan streamed in behind her. They'd gone shopping and then gone to a movie, a Disney flick that Eric pretended to have hated but really was arguing animatedly with Morgan about. The noise started Cory awake. He wrapped his arms tighter around Shawn.

Something in Alan ached. There was a problem here, but for the life of him he didn't know what all these red flags added up to.

"I'm taking Shawn home." He grabbed the keys from his wife. Dropped a kiss on her forehead. Scooped up Shawn. He was eleven and too big to be carried, but he was eleven and light as Morgan.

Cory trotted after Alan, settling with Shawn in the backseat without being asked.

There was a problem here. Alan drove to a trailer park on the other side of town. He glanced at Shawn as they pulled up. "You awake now, kiddo?" It wasn't the words he wanted to say. He wanted to say, _let me walk you to the door._ He wanted to say, _let me talk to your father._ Let me sort this out. Let me ask him why the hell you're so scared of men, and men drinking, and raised voices.

But somehow the words got stuck. Sometimes adults didn't do right by kids.

"Thanks for driving me, Mr. Matthews," Shawn said, slipping out of the car and into the night. Alan sat there with Cory until they saw Shawn let himself into his house. All of Alan's speeches wouldn't have worked anyway.

No one was home.

iii.

John had never expected to be staring down guardianship papers for the fifteen-year-old who slept on his couch, and he told the social worker as much. She did not seem amused. She was a woman who sighed a lot.

"Well," the social worker, Mrs. Grace, sighed, "If you become his legal guardian, he won't be able to sleep on the couch. There are certain standards to be met."

John leaned across the table. "Shawn ended up with me because his dad took off and took his home with him. The kid was sleeping in the park for two nights. In November! I'd think the couch is a step up."

"A step up or not, I think we can both agree Shawn deserves more than the bare minimum."

And, yeah, she had him there. Shawn was a loud presence in class, unabashedly eating anything that wasn't nailed down, but come nightfall the kid tiptoed around the apartment. He had a small pile of clothes that had started to give off that typical boy funk, but when John ribbed him about it over take-out Shawn flinched, stuffing the clothes in a backpack that minute, saying he'd been meaning to go to the laundromat, he was going to do it after dinner anyway, might as well go now.

Shawn was still living on the bare minimum. Every night in that apartment was a tense dance, as if Shawn felt he'd be kicked out for taking up space, asking for a pillow, existing.

"Of course he deserves more." John still wasn't sure he was the right person fro the job but he knew that this sensitive, scared boy he had deserved the world.

On his way out the door he stuffed the guardianship papers under his arm.

.

He meant to bring it up over pizza (he always swore he'd cook but he was coaching the boy's basketball team and practice didn't end until six, which meant he wasn't home until six-thirty, and every night he'd stare an the empty cabinets and swear he'd go shopping before hollering for Shawn to run down to Chubbies again.) John was going to bring up the papers as soon as Shawn finished this story about Cory and Topanga.

But before that could happen - a knock at the door.

Shawn raised an eyebrow. "I thought you scheduled your call girls for nights I'm not home."

John threw a greasy napkin at him and opened the door to a short Pakastani man.

Shawn smirked into his slice. "Maybe he's lost."

"Mr. Salehi is our landlord, smart-ass." John turned back to the man. "Can I help you with something, Arav?"

"You're a good tenet, Mr. Teacher. First of the month come and go, I think money got lost. But now we are a whole week into the month and still no money."

Crap. Had he really forgotten to pay the rent? John did a quick tally of what should be in his bank account and apologized profusely. "Things have been kind of crazy around here, Arav. Why don't you come in and I'll grab my check book?"

Arav sidled into the tiny kitchen, eyeing the pizza box and the boy behind it. "Who this, Mr. Teacher?"

John squeezed Shawn's shoulder. "Practice all that civility we talk about in class. Two minutes, Arav!"

Apparently two minutes was too many.

By the time he leapt down the short staircase, Shawn had somehow been backed against the couch, Arav staring at him with a fierce intensity. "This boy says he live here, Mr. Teacher, but you are the only one on lease. Are you sub-letting in my building?"

"No. No! Shawn is...a friend. He's just staying for a...while."

"A while? I seen him come in for months now." Arav glanced in the direction of the single bedroom. "How old are you?" he barked at Shawn.

Usually the kid was a rock under questions but the tone or the suddenness of the question surprised an answer out of him. "Fourteen."

"Fourteen! It's very young, Mr. Teacher. You should not be having friends with boys of fourteen. There is no room for him. Unless he sleep with you?"

John blinked, then realized what Arav was implying and - he didn't know what 'seeing red' was until now. His blood boiled. "He sleeps on the couch, Arav. He's my student. I'm not-" he had no clue how to finish the sentence so he just left it hanging there.

Now Arav was looking at the couch. "He sleep on the couch all this time?"

"Yes!"

"No," Arav said in a tone that implied finality. "Your lease for one person. For two people you pay more."

Frick. He'd walked right into that one. Still, it had to be a small price to pay for not having the police called about the homeless kid he was harboring in his apartment. "How much more?"

"One hundred dollars. Two hundred today, plus rent."

"Why two hundred?"

"He been here many weeks. I seen him! You owe for that time."

It felt a lot like highway robbery, or maybe hallway robbery, but John wrote out a second check and passed it along.

Arav took them in his fingertips. Eyes on Shawn. "You stay out of the bedroom, boy."

Before John could decide whether to shout at the man or shake him, the landlord had disappeared back into the hallway.

And then there were two.

John glanced at Shawn, who looked slightly sick, and walked over to the door, locking the knob and adding the chain for good measure.

"Did he..." Shawn blinked. "He didn't think that I was, like, sleeping with you. Right?"

"It doesn't matter what he thinks."

Shawn was still looking at the closed door, slack-jawed with surprise. "He thought you were sleeping with me. Jesus. What if he calls the cops?"

"He won't."

"But what if he does?" Shawn pressed. "Am I legally allowed to be here? A bachelor high school teacher and his underage homeless student doesn't play well in the papers."

It was an easy story to spin the wrong way and suddenly John could envision his life down that road. An intimation here and a comment there and he'd never be able to teach again. He shook it off. He was supposed to be the rational adult here. "Feeny knows why you're here. So do the Matthews. Hell, the cops could get your dad on the phone and he'd tell them why you're here."

"Good luck reaching Chet Hunter when he's on a mission," Shawn snorted. Then grew serious again. "Damn. And he charged you all that extra money."

"Yeah, I need to go over the lease again." John looked blearily around the room as if a copy of the lease would just spring up from whatever drawer he'd no doubt stuffed it into. _Or_ , he thought, _we could move out_. The words were on the tip of his tongue. He would need to move out, if Shawn was going to have his own room.

"I don't have two hundred dollars. I have...forty...four? Forty-four fifty. Cory's dad pays us to unload some boxes sometimes but...I can get you more if you just give me some time."

The bills were stuffed into John's hand. "Shawn..."

"I've been applying to jobs but I guess I'm pretty young. And all the money I have...well, sometimes Cory wants to go to the movies or to Chubbies or something and he pays for me a lot but I don't want to be that guy who always his friend pay for him, you know?"

"Shawn-"

"John." Shawn, who had been looking at some spot on the ground, mustered up the courage to raise his eyes to meet John's. "I have no where else to go."

The guardianship papers were still in a folder in his shoulder bag and John cursed himself for not bringing them out before, for not doing it as soon as possible, saving Shawn an extra hour of this worrying. And Shawn must be worried. Must have been worried for months. Curling up on the couch and trying to take up as little room as possible. "I'm not going to kick you out, Shawn. And you don't have to pay me rent."

"Okay." Shawn didn't look convinced and he didn't make a move to pick up the money John laid down on the table. He smirked at the door. "But if the police come barging in, I'm eighteen and straight as an arrow."

He winked and John and started clearing out pizza boxes.

iv.

She was nearly too big to play pretend in the tree house, but her friends were busy and Cory and Eric were nice enough big brothers but they hardly wanted a ten-year-old tagging around, so when Mom left to take Cory to a doctor's appointment and Eric pointedly told her to stay out of the kitchen so he could talk to a girl on the phone, Morgan picked up a drawing pad and a stuffed rabbit and climbed into the tree house, already preparing for the next hour of expedition through Africa.

Except when she reached up to pull herself into the house, she grabbed onto a foot. And screamed. Just a little.

"Shh! Morgan, it's okay, it's just me. Don't yell, okay? You'll get Mr. Feeny over here."

Morgan pulled herself up into the treehouse and right next to Shawn. She pulled the stuffed rabbit even closer to her chest. Lately Shawn and Cory had both been getting taller, hair darker, voices deeper, and she didn't really care about Cory but Shawn...she looked at the rabbit, knowing she was blushing furiously.

"I didn't know you came up here anymore," Shawn's voice was gentle and teasing. He was like the best kind of big brother. He always had patience for Morgan's questions and never told her to get lost. Plus...oh there was something about his hair and his eyes and the way he looked right at her when she talked that made Morgan feel suddenly shy, even though she'd known Shawn forever, since she was a baby, practically. "I think I'm the one who uses this place the most."

"You come to our fort?" Morgan tried to hide the drawing pad and crayons. Shawn was going to see them and think she was a baby when she wasn't, she was going to be in fifth grade.

"Not so much anymore," Shawn admitted. "Getting a little big."

And he was. Limbs everywhere. Long legs splayed. Sixteen looked funny on boys. All hands and feet but Shawn's face looked the same as ever. Morgan played with her rabbit's ear, smoothed the brown fur. "Cory's not here."

"I know. Doctor, right? I thought I'd wait for him to get home."

"Why?"

Shawn shrugged. "I wanted to see you guys."

Morgan was flattered to be included in the 'you guys' but still. She leaned against the wall of the fort. "Didn't you move back in with your Dad?" She heard things. Mr. Turner disappeared after Shawn joined those weird friends. And then Shawn's Dad back again.

Shawn touched the rabbit's head, like he couldn't help himself. "Can you keep a secret, Morgan?"

She thought about it. "I don't know."

Shawn grinned, then sighed. There was something on his lip, a crust of something like chocolate. "I don't think my Dad likes me very much."

There was quiet in the fort, so much quiet that Morgan thought it was going to choke her. Then she scooted, just a little, to Shawn's side. Put a hand on his arm. "I like you."

"Thanks, honey."

She felt all warm when Shawn called her honey, and maybe that's why she hugged him. She thought he was going to laugh and push her away, but instead he held her tight, so tight the rabbit was squished between them.

They sat in the fort until Mom came home. She shared her drawing pad. She drew a picture of her rabbit as a doctor in the jungle. He drew a box house with a chimney and people in front. Mom and Dad. A little girl. Two boys.

She named her drawing, because her art teacher said it wasn't official without a name. She called it "Kismit in the Jungle." Shawn called his "Home."

v.

It happened gradually, over the course of his Senior year. His step-father (who he used to call "Dad" until he was twelve or so and Chet stopped by. Now he called the man who celebrated birthdays with him and gave him his first car and brought him to the hospital when he broke his leg "Ken" and he didn't know if it was right but he couldn't stop doing it either) -anyway, his step-father had been the one to give him the Pennbrook application. "It's in Philadelphia," Ken said, shoving his hands deep in his pockets. And it was sort of like a blessing.

He applied to Pennbrook and also applied to Dartmouth and Duke and UPitt. He got in most places. Money wasn't the problem - with Ken, money was never a problem. But he kept drifting back to Pennbrook. They had a political science major. They weren't nationally ranked or anything, but the tuition was decent and...and...

He sent in his deposit. He wasn't thinking about poly-sci at all, of course he wasn't. He was thinking Chet. He was thinking Shawn.

He'd seen Shawn exactly once, when the younger boy was eleven, that first visit from Chet that had happened at a rest stop off the interstate. Shawn, in too-big flannel and his sleeves rolled up, who claimed to be excited at the prospect of getting a milkshake at the end of the meal but spent most of the awkward lunch staring at Jack and pushing his food around.

Chet stopped by more often. There had been a string of visits when Jack was in high school. Chet said he was chasing his second wife, Verna, across the country. Shawn wasn't with him. When Jack pressed about where Shawn was, exactly...well, that's when he started getting worried.

So at the end of summer he packed up his car. Gave Ken and his mother a hug in the driveway. "See you at Thanksgiving," Jack said, feeling like he was part of some vast American tableau as his mother made him promise to call and Ken gave him a twenty "for the road." He backed out of the driveway and headed for the City of Brotherly Love.

Honestly, he would have liked some more time to prepare. He'd imagined coming into town, finding roommates, getting a week or two into classes, then surprising Shawn. He planned out the conversation during that long, lonely drive. He'd get Shawn alone, away from Chet. "How are you, Shawn? No, really, how are you?" He'd ask him about that year when Chet was gone. He'd promise that he'd always be there for him.

Jack had friends in high school who had little brothers: tag-along boys; serious, ride-or-die relationships. There was a period where he wanted a brother more than he wanted a girlfriend. More than he wanted anything.

Maybe he was in that period still.

He hadn't expected to run into Shawn on day one. He hadn't expected the anger or the sadness. And he hadn't expected that Shawn would still be wearing those baggy shirts. Have those long bangs. Have the instincts of a hurt animal, ready to bolt.

After Shawn left Chubbies, Jack ended up talking to Cory, the kid whose brother (brother!) needed a roommate. The kid who, it turned out, was Shawn's best friend. Cory was too elated about getting rid of his brother to be much help, but his girlfriend (Topaz? Tamara?) ended up pulling Jack aside. "I'm really happy that you're here, and I bet Shawn is, too." The girl bit her lip. She was pretty. She didn't look seventeen. If Jack had to guess, he'd bet that Topaz was the one keeping the friend group in check. "Shawn...hasn't had an easy time in high school. Or ever, really. So. Be gentle with him, okay?"

Her eyes round and intense. It was a girl way of saying _hurt this boy and I'll end you._

It was those words that made Jack actually track down the Hunter clan. In a trailer park.

Okay, he'll admit it. He grew up with a silver spoon. Big house with more bedrooms than they needed. A pool. He had never set foot in a trailer park. He looked for a doorbell for a solid minute before just hammering on the storm door. There was a dog wandering from door to door without a leash. It seemed like a different world.

Chet opened the door.

Jack used to feel differently about Chet before his mother took him aside earlier this summer. And, yeah, his mother wasn't a saint or anything, and she sometimes exaggerated the truth, but she'd sat Jack down one morning before he went down for his lifeguarding shift at the pool and said that he needed to know something about Chet Hunter, if he was going to be living in Philadelphia. That he was a sweet man, mostly. That he was everyone's best friend. That he had a love for liquor. And that the bottle changed him. "A mean drunk," she said, and when Jack pressed her about what that meant she admitted to yelling that turned to slaps that turned to being thrown across the room, once. And how he'd held her against the wall so forcefully her skin turned black and blue. How the last straw was when she came home and Chet was passed out in the living room and Jack was screaming in his crib in a diaper that was obviously hours old.

After that conversation, Jack had gone to work. He hadn't really even said anything, just walked out the door and climbed up into the lifeguard stand and had eight hours to stew on everything. How someone could do that to his mother. And, several hours later, the thought occurred to him-

His mother divorced Chet on the grounds of infidelity. Verna and Shawn were already in the picture. Did his mother walk away knowing that this could happen again? To Verna? To Shawn?

So, yeah, Jack was feeling some kind of way by the time he walked into the double-wide. He was thinking that the space was too small and Chet was too big. That Shawn hovered around the edges like a ghost, picking up things in Chet's wake. Dishes in the sink. Tools in the drawer. Keeping everything in order.

He didn't know what his goal was when he walked in, but when Chet suggested they be roommates everything clicked. Yes. This is why he came to Philadelphia. Pennbrook was just a school. This was his family. Shawn was his family. Of course they should live together.

(Only later, when Shawn told him more of his story-months staying with a kind teacher who'd stepped up, nights sleeping in the park, couch surfing with Cory, abandoned early by his mother and periodically by his father-once he heard that story Jack started thinking about how Chet had pushed Shawn out of the house. Kicked him out again. Kicked him towards Jack, towards family, but also towards a stranger.)

(Because he was a stranger. Those first few months living together it was painfully obvious how much more Eric knew about Shawn than he did. Oblivious, goofy Eric knew that Shawn preferred iced tea to soda. Knew that Shawn would watch the Eagles but loved the slow pace of Phillies games, preferably in person, a relic from when Chet used to take him to the stadium. Eric once walked in when Jack was cooking and said, bemused, smiling, 'you trying to kill your brother? You know he's allergic to shellfish, right?' and Jack had thrown the whole bowl of shrimp scampi into the trash because, no, he didn't know. And Eric did. And that wasn't fair at all).

From those conversations, Jack got the sense that what Chet did to Shawn was abuse. Abandoning your kid over and over again, leaving him to stay with friends at best and find his own shelter at worst...but Shawn never mentioned anything like what Jack's mother implied. And so eventually Jack started thinking that maybe Chet had changed, that being a father the second time around had been good for him.

And so one day, when Shawn was in high school, and experimenting, and hormonal, and drinking, and Jack felt like he was losing his brother piece by piece-one day Jack yelled at him. Scared for him. Alcoholism ran in the family. "Our father," Jack spat, "was an abusive, ugly drunk."

Shawn's eyes went blank at the words. Just...gone. Completely gone.

It was Cory who said into the silence that followed: "He knows that, Jack. He knows."

+i

They're in fourth grade and Shawn is a social butterfly (he resents the term but Cory's dad called Shawn a butterfly once and now it's all Cory can think of, Shawn flitting between lunch tables, taking sips of nectar, moving on).

He always returns to Cory. A homing pigeon. A butterfly. Chips in hand. "From Stacy Musgrave," Shawn says, munching happily. He steals Cory's milk.

"Get your own," Cory says, like he says everyday.

"I could." Shawn glances around the lunchroom. "Lisa DiMarco would totally give me her milk."

"No, I mean," Cory never pushes but he watches Shawn's eyes pan the tables. A dog on a scent. A hungry dog. "I mean, like, get your own. Get in the lunchline."

"Who has time for a lunchline?" Shawn pushes his hair back, and Cory's young, they're both so young, but Shawn doing that with his hair is already Cory's cue to lean forward a little. Call him on his bluff. "Shawn...?"

"It's fine, keep you milk."

"Shawn, just get your own. Don't you, like," Cory's grasping at something, a conversation overheard months ago, "get it for free?"

His parents had been talking. Shawn came over a lot. So they talked about him a lot. Trailer park. No mom. Free lunch. "That's not Shawn's fault," his mom said, and then dad, "I'm not saying it is! Shawn's a nice kid. But..."

But. Cory stopped listening after that.

Shawn tugs his flannel down over his wrists. Bites his lip. "My dad never signed the forms. He says Hunters don't need charity."

"Okay. But then shouldn't your dad send your lunch from home?"

The flannel pulled even lower. Like Shawn's trying to disappear. A butterfly. A pigeon. A dog. A mouse. Shawn has so many faces, Cory thinks, and Cory has only one, but somehow he always feels braver when Shawn becomes the mouse. When Shawn messes with his hair and won't look at him, that's when Cory feels like he could fight the world. Like he feels with Morgan. A big brother.

"We'll talk to Mr. Feeny," Cory decides. "He can get your lunch even without a form, I bet."

By the end of the day they're in Feeny's office, and Shawn's still a mouse so Cory is still a big brother, and Mr. Feeny's face gets serious and kind of sad. "Shawn," he says, kind of choked up. "Are you telling me that you've had no lunch at all since the beginning of the school year?"

It's November. Cory remembers later: food drives, turkey hand prints.

"Cory shares with me. Some other people do, too." Though that's not the right word. Cory won't realize until later, how Shawn flirts his way into food.

"But you have no food of your own?"

The mouse stays quiet.

Mr. Feeny takes out a piece of paper. "I would like to talk to your father about this, Shawn, but he has proven quite unreachable in the past. Will you take a note home to him?"

Shawn bites into his lip. "Does...does he have to sign it?"

Mr. Feeny looked funny then. "I would like him to call me, but whether or not he does has no bearing on your food situation. Starting tomorrow you will receive lunch. Just give your name at the end of the line."

"Just my name?"

"Just Shawn," Mr. Feeny paused. Then, gentler than ever, like he knows Shawn's still a mouse right now. "Do you have something to eat tonight?"

"Yes, sir," Shawn says. "I'm eating with the Matthews."

.

They're in seventh grade and Shawn is taller. Still a butterfly but now he's less of a mouse, more of a fox. Grinning, secretive, scheming. Handsome, like Eric is handsome, all hair and big eyes while Cory knows his hair and eyes and especially how short he is adds up to something...else. Dorky. Dumpy.

And he feels way dorkier and dumpier playing basketball in the park on Sunday. Shirts against skins. It's mostly Eric's high school friends, so Shawn and Cory are on opposite teams "to balance out the suck" in Eric's words, but Shawn has a decent layup and Cory worms his way into rebounds and after a couple minutes the high schoolers start passing them the ball. There's girls watching. Shawn and Jason are going back to Cory and Eric's house for a school-night sleepover to watch the Eagles take on the Cowboys on Sunday Night Football.

Cory's loving everything about the day. He's thinking about his mom making chili and maybe fresh bread and he passes the ball to Jason who throws an elbow at Shawn who screams and crumples.

It's so sudden that Jason's still following through with the layup. But Cory turns. That wasn't an indignant foul basketball grunt. It's something else. Pain. Real pain.

"Get off it, man, he barely touched you!"

"Eric, you gonna let these kids ruin our game?"

Jason extended a hand. "Sorry, Shawn, but you've been crowding me all game."

Shawn doesn't take the hand. He rolls on his side, clutching his chest, face red. Wheezing. Tears streaming down his cheeks. Cory's on his knees.

"Children," Eric sing-songs, "you're embarrassing me."

Cory gets Shawn's head lifted a moment before he vomits. Puke. Some blood.

"Gross!"

"Fuck, Jason, how hard did you hit him?"

Most of the group drifts away, forming a wary rubbernecking semi-circle. Shawn sobbing and Cory just pats his hair, shimmies them away from the vomit. He looks to Eric who just stares for a moment before turning to Jason. "Go get your car."

Jason runs off and Eric kneels next to Cory. Maybe Eric is a little like Cory. Maybe, when Shawn's hurt, he becomes a big brother all over again, too. "Shawn? Buddy, were you feeling sick before you started playing?"

Shawn shakes his head, curling in and up. He's breathing weird.

Eric pushes up Shawn's shirt. Cory can't see what he sees - he's got Shawn's head in his lap - but Eric's face gets very serious and he puts the shirt back down. "You been getting into fights, Shawn?"

"Shawn doesn't fight people," Cory snaps. A lot of people assume things about Shawn once they hear he's from a trailer park. Gangs and stuff. They don't know that Shawn is a butterfly and a fox and a mouse.

"Either he's getting in fights," Eric says, "or he's been walking into doors shaped like fists."

"What does that mean?"

"Someone beats him up. You've got bruises all over your ribs, Shawny. Jason must have hit one. I don't think your ribs are broken but he would take you to the hospital to get it all checked out."

Shawn had stopped crying and at Eric's words started to push himself up. "Can - let's go back to your house?" almost a whine. Shawn was rarely whiny.

This was a call for big brothers. Cory looks at Eric, who looks away. "Let's just get in the car."

They get on either side of Shawn but Cory is too short to help and after some staggered steps Eric just kind of sighs and grabs Shawn under the knees. Carries him. Shawn buries his face in Eric's neck and whispers a thank you.

Jason's has the car nearby. Gets the back door open. "Jesus, Shawn. What happened?"

Cory slides in next to Shawn and Eric gets in the front. Turns around to face them. "I'd like to hear the answer to that, Shawn. What's with the bruises?"

"Football," Shawn's pale but manages a smile. The secretive fox. "I play touch football at the trailer park sometimes. Those kids play hard."

"Football," Eric repeats. "Anything else? Because I saw your back, Shawn. You've got those bruises down the front but on the back -"

"That's nothing."

"It looks like someone whipped you."

Shawn's face goes all sad. Mousey. And Cory surges forward. Doesn't know where to hug him so just squeezes his knee instead. Jason had started to move the car but they're at the edge of the park, turn signal blinking.

"Some of the marks look pretty old, Shawn, and-"

"It's a belt, not a whip." Shawn says it real quick and then clams up tight.

Jason fiddles with the turn signal. "Which way?" He asks the silent car.

"Please," Shawn mutters, "Eric..."

Eric slams his back into the seat. "Let's go home."

.

They're in middle school and Cory's stuck tutoring Frankie, and the session goes late one night and he doesn't want to dart across the highway alone, so he goes to knock on Shawn's door, ask for some company on the walk or maybe get Mr. Hunter to drive him. He pauses before he knocks because there's yelling on the other side of the door. Screaming.

"Dad," Shawn's desperate, pleading, "I'll do it now, okay? I'll run out to the store and -"

"I don't know what I did to deserve such a lazy son! I don't ask for much from you! I told you to go to the store so I could make your ungrateful ass dinner!"

"I-Dad, I saw the note, but there wasn't any money."

A bang. Cory backed away from the door, then got closer again when he heard Shawn whimper.

"And this place is filthy. You're okay living like this? Disgusting."

"I'll go now, okay?"

"Go? Go where? You're staying here and cleaning up this mess." Another bang. A clatter, like a table worth of things being swept onto the floor. "All of this is your junk. Papers! Don't I tell you to keep your papers in your room? And these shoes." Twin bangs, and little yells form Shawn. Thuds. As if he'd been hit with shoe-shaped projectiles. "Obviously you need more reminders. You need another reminder?"

"No, Dad, no. Come on. Please. I'll clean it up."

"I don't need people saying I raised a soft son."

"Dad, no. Stop. Stop!"

Cory sped away then, heart pounding, flinching at the smack and at Shawn's screams. He wanted to burst in there. He had no clue what would happen if he burst in there. Every part of him needed to save Shawn. Every part of him knew that Shawn would die from shame at being saved.

He backed into the heart of the trailer park. He could still hear the screams. There were other people here, a trio of older men playing cards. They shook their heads every time Shawn screamed. "Damn shame," one muttered.

"Someone ought to stop that man."

"You don't get between a father disciplining a son. That's the truth."

"One of these days I'm gonna. I can't stand the screaming."

.

They're in high school. Jason doesn't come around anymore, hasn't really come around since that night where they all weren't really watching the Eagles game. Eric had gone to talk to Dad in another room and then Dad talked to Shawn but...nothing happened. Shawn went home the next day. He wore one of Cory's shirts and walked towards the trailer park, and Eric was gentler around Shawn, and Dad asked questions sometimes, and Jason bailed.

But now they're in high school and Shawn's dad is officially MIA. He's taken off before, nights and weekends. "He'll come back," Cory shrugs. That's just the way of the world. Chet Hunter leaves and the wind brings him back.

"Well, yeah, but this time he kind of took the house with him." Shawn sticks a fork into his mac and cheese with such force it sends his tray flying.

Cory laughs. Shawn doesn't. "Wait, really? When did this happen?"

"Like a week ago?" Shawn's wearing the same shirt he was wearing yesterday. Cory hadn't noticed before.

"And you're just telling me now?"

Shawn shrugs, staring at his food. "Well. It's getting kind of cold out."

"Of course it's getting kind of cold out! It's March!" And they've had spring-y weather but March turns on a dime and there's snow in the forecast later. Everyone hoping for a day off tomorrow. "Where have you been staying?"

He shouldn't have asked like that, he knows as soon as the words are out of his mouth. He knows that Shawn doesn't tell him things. The marks on his back. The black eye he had once. The time when Cory grabbed his wrist and Shawn screamed. Or this, not having a father or a house. For a week. "Around." Another shrug.

"Why not just stay with me?" Cory's so genuinely baffled. Sometimes they fight, sure, but they haven't fought lately. They goof off in school and play basketball or go to the library or hang at Chubbies playing pool in the back room and then Cory goes home and, he thought, Shawn did the same. But it's not like Shawn never stays with him. He's such a fixture that his parents have sort of given in, knowing Shawn will sleep over even on school nights.

"Your parents are going to get sick of me one day," Shawn warns. It had been happening more and more lately. Little asides about Cory finding someone new to hang out with, someone on the right track, the college track, someone less...troubled.

"So what? I'll leave the window open. I'll kick Eric into Morgan's room."

Shawn sticks his fork back in the mostly empty plate. "You're going to get sick of me, too."

"What? No way!"

Shawn doesn't look at him, just lowers his voice. "Look, when I'm sleeping in the park or...or wherever, I can do that, I can get through that because I know that if it gets too cold or something I can go to your house. But I don't know when my dad is coming back. He barely left a note. And I can't stay with you forever. If you get sick of me..." Shawn trails off. He doesn't finish.

He doesn't have to.

Shawn has always been the boy with no where else to go.

.

Cory tells people. Of course he tells people. He tells Mr. Feeny about Shawn's food shortages. He knows that Eric told their father about the basketball game. He gets Turner alone after class one day. "I know Shawn is staying with you and, um, you should know that you can't yell at him like you yell in class."

"I don't yell," Mr. Turner says. "I orate."

"Whatever. He doesn't like being yelled at, okay?"

"Thanks for the parenting advice, Matthews, but I think I got this."

They're in high school and Shawn stayed with Mr. Turner and then was back with his father and met a girl and got really, really good at hustling pool in the back room of Chubbies, and then gets kicked out of Chubbies, learns how to hustle elsewhere. He is a butterfly and a fox and a dog and a homing pigeon. He's a migratory bird, searching for fairer weather.

They're in high school and Shawn spends his nights bouncing between Cory's house and Angela's. They're in high school and Cory's studying for a history test when Shawn calls him from jail for the first time. Petty theft. He'd been caught stealing some beef jerky and a pack of hamburger rolls. He needs fifty dollars for bail and a parent to pick him up. Cory gets his Dad to drive him over and deal with the cops, and Dad's all tense and quiet in the car.

"Sorry," Shawn says immediately. "I'm sorry, Mr. Matthews. Thanks for...for picking me up."

"Are you sorry for stealing?" Alan sounds weary. "Or sorry you got caught?"

Shawn shrugs. He's all bones. He has, like, four shirts, but the one he's wearing now is different, black and sort of tight. It makes him look skinny and dangerous. It makes him look like a punk. The cops, they're all treating Shawn like a punk. They don't know that Shawn can mimic any teacher and is gentle with Cory's sister and bruises like a peach. They don't know anything except that Shawn's from the wrong side of town, and his Dad can't be reached, and...

"What do you mean he has a record?"

Shawn ducks his head as the cop rattles it off. Apparently Shawn's racked up warnings. Petty theft. Hustling. Loitering. Solicitation. At the last one, Alan cuts his eyes to Shawn and hands over the money and promises they'll make it to court and they leave.

Out in the parking lot, Shawn takes a deep breath. "It wasn't solicitation, Mr. Matthews." He doesn't sound sixteen, he sounds a hundred. "I was trying to get my Dad out of this bar, and some guys saw me, and I guess a cop came at the wrong time."

"I believe you."

"I don't do that stuff, sir."

"Shawn..." Cory thinks in that moment that his Dad would do it, deal with all these problems that had been building up, figure out the right solution. He's a grown up. He's a Dad. He could handle it. But instead, Dad just says, "you don't need to steal food. You ever get hungry, ever, there's always a place for you at our table."

Shawn smiles, like they're solving the problem and not just triaging the symptoms.

He tells Topanga. He tells Angela. He tells Mr. Feeny, again. Shawn doesn't stay home at night. When he does, he ends up mysteriously hurt. He eats anything you put in front of him. He can't stand yelling. He sleeps on Cory's carpet and then doesn't come back for a week. He smiles. He jokes. He somehow passes tests. He comes up with money in wads of twenties. He's hustling pool again. He doesn't talk about college. He doesn't talk about anything.

He doesn't come to school one day and Cory thinks he's sick. He doesn't come to school for three days and Cory thinks Chet Hunter killed him. He thinks this so strongly that he makes Eric drive him over to the trailer park, hyperventilating by the time they get there, hysterical, jumping at shadows. Shawn's eye is swollen shut when he answers the door. "Not now, Cory," he says, and slams the door shut.

In school the next day, Shawn begs him, as he's begged him all these years: don't tell anyone. Don't tell a counselor. Don't tell Mr. Feeny. He'll end up in the system, and who knows where he'll go from there? A different school. A different town. Too far away to climb into Cory's window at night. A year. Two years. He'll last that long. Just keep the window unlocked, Cor. And leave some leftovers for me.

.

Jack yells it to the living room. "Our father was an abusive, ugly drunk!"

And Cory just puts a hand on Shawn. He knows. Shawn knows. The more Cory learns, the more psych courses he takes, sociology, social work, trying to see what he could have done...the more he reads, the more stunned he is that Shawn made it this far, alive and mostly whole in his half-brother's apartment. Neglected. Unwanted. Abused. Ignored.

A fox. A mouse. A pigeon. A dog. A phoenix, struggling, groping, rising from the rock bottom of the ashes.

**Author's Note:**

> So I've obviously been watching Boy Meets World on Disney+ and this is a good show, okay? It holds up even after you get past the 90s nostalgia, but Shawn is a neglected kid, and his friends are not actually that helpful. Any time he expresses emotion about what's happening in his life they shut him down pretty quick. And it just made me think...well. I wish someone listened to him more.
> 
> Anyway, go rewatch the show and write some more Boy Meets World fanfics because it's a crime that there's not more.
> 
> Also for Amanda. Have fun with your tigers.


End file.
